Posted on September 23rd, 2009 in AK Allies, AK Authors!, Recommended Reading
Editor’s Note: We occasionally ask AK authors (and others) to provide a list of recommended readings on a particular topic. For today’s installment, we didn’t even have to ask. AK author Josh MacPhee, who edited Realizing the Impossible (with Erik Ruin) and the forthcoming Signs of Change (with Dara Greenwald) posted the following insanely expert list of indispensable political poster books to the Just Seeds blog. We repost it here with his permission…and, once again, highly recommend that you check out Just Seeds and Josh’s many other books.
ps: the only book on Josh’s list that AK (currently) carries is Visions of Peace & Justice. Though he has certainly whetted our appetite!
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Twenty Poster Books of Note
Josh MacPhee
I was making out a list of books for a friend, and realized I could share it with all our blog readers. For those that don’t know, I’m both a book nerd, and a poster nerd. For years I’ve been collecting every book about political poster art I can find. Here’s a list of what I think are the 20 best books about post-WWII political posters. They are in alphabetical order by author, not importance. A handful of them are out of print, or painfully expensive to get in the US, but most are still available and findable on sites like ABE Books:
Arnulfo Aquino & Jorge Pérezvega, eds. Imágenes y Símboles del 68: Fotografía y Gráfica del Movimiento Estudiantil. Distrito Federal, México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2004.
The best book available on the political graphics produced during the Mexican student upheaval in 1968. Unlike Europe, where screenprinting became the poster production method of choice in 68 and into the 70s, in Mexico the block print was most widely used. In part this was likely due to the graphic history of Mexico, and the political printmaking traditions of the Taller de Gráfica Popular. This book captures a ton of the graphics produced, as well as a lot of photo documentation of banners, marches, and the student propaganda brigades, which produced and distributed a lot of the prints. The only drawbacks to the book is that it’s in Spanish (a bummer for us English-only idiots), and the images are all black & white or a brick red duotone, which looks nice, but doesn’t give us a full feel for how the color posters actually looked.
Dana Bartelt, Yossi Lemel, Fawzy El Emrany, and Sliman Mansour. Both Sides of Peace: Israeli and Palestinian Poster Art. Seattle, WA and London: University of Washington Press, 1996.
So far the best collection of posters from the Palestinian-Israeli struggle. The Israeli posters tend to be more polished and “designed,” and although the majority are critical of Israeli policy, there are a number of zionist pieces. It is one of the largest collections of Israeli David Tartakover’s designs (at least available in English), and we get to see how effective he marshals the raw tools of the collage and photocopy in creating anti-occupation posters. The Palestinian work tends to be more raw, many of the posters photo-reproductions of paintings and drawings. A lot of the posters are created by the PLO, or celebrate the Intifada. Stylistically many mirror Cuban political posters, showing the aesthetic aspects of Third World solidarity.
Eduardo Castillo Espinoza. Cartel Chileno 1963-1973. Santiago, Chile: Ediciones B Chile, 2006.
This one is particularly hard to find, but well worth the search. Kevin actually brought this back from Chile for me. First, it’s giant, 11″x15″, so you almost get the full feel of what these images actually look like as posters. The focus here is on the Allende years, and there are a couple framing essays in Spanish. The real treasure is the posters, over 90 full page images, and on top of that there are a half dozen images of some of the posters in development, from rough pencil sketches to colored marker proofs. This is a rare insight into historical poster production, all of these made before computers were used for design. Interestingly, most of the posters here were created by a handful of designers, including Vincente Larrea, Waldo González Hervé and Mario Quirez, but commissioned by a wide array of organizations, from unions to universities, political parties to musicians, film houses to student organizations.
Peter Chelkowski & Hamid Dabashi. Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran. NYC: New York University Press, 1999.
This book is much more about the art, politics and sociology of propaganda and graphic persuasion than simply the reproduction of political posters. Through postage stamps, paintings, posters, editorial cartoons, grade school textbooks, street art, murals, public performance, film and even the images on currency, the authors weave an impressive narrative of how images were wielded by the Ayatollahs to wrest power from the popular movement through the revolution of 1978-79, and then marshal support during the decade long and deeply bloody Iran-Iraq war. No simple task, this book is of interest to anyone inquisitive about the use of propaganda, political graphics, and the use of design to encourage and control certain behaviors (whether they be shopping or martyrdom).
Lincoln Cushing, ed. Visions of Peace & Justice: Over 30 Years of Political Posters from the Archives of Inkworks Press. Berkeley, CA: Inkworks Press, 2007.
An absolutely fabulous study of the poster output of one movement printshop! By looking at all of the output of Inkworks Press in Berkeley, CA from 1974-2007, this book gives us an amazing cross section of artists, designers, aesthetics, and political movements. We can see how movements, styles and artists evolved over time, and really get a look at what was happening on the streets of the Bay Area over the past 35 years. This book is solid evidence for the value of movement printshops, and the irreplaceable role they can play in a community.
Russ Davidson, ed. Latin American Posters: Public Aesthetics and Mass Politics. Sante Fe, NM: Museum of New Mexico Press, 2006.
Definitely one of the best cross sections of posters from across Latin America. It definitely has it’s fair share of Cuban (although some are lesser seen images produced by OCLAE and the UIE) and Chilean posters, there’s also a fair showing of material from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Nicaragua, Argentina and El Salvador. Plus some images from countries rarely represented in poster collections, like Panama and Peru. The clutch of image of Puerto Rican screenprints is quite a treat, often competing with Cuban work in design and color usage, but with their own distinct aesthetic flair.
Eric Duivenvoorden. Met Emmer en Kwast: Veertig jaar Nederlandse Actieaffiches 1965-2005. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Het Fort van Sjakoo, 2005.
One of 2 major collections of Dutch political posters that have been published (the other being the older Een Teken Aan de Wand), this one brings us almost up to the present, and has a much larger collection of posters created by the squatting movement and the “autonomous” left. Organized around themes, there are strong bodies of graphics around the anti-nuclear movement, housing, squatting, women’s struggles, anti-apartheid, as well as specifically Dutch movements and concerns like Provo, the Kabouters, and Dutch involvement in Suriname. In addition the book comes with a CD of lo-res images of 7500 political posters, an absolutely massive collection of Dutch political graphics.
Sam Durant, ed. Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas. New York City: Rizzoli, 2007.
One of 2 artist specific books on this list. The art of Emory Douglas, the Black Panther’s Minister of Culture, is so distinctive and has been so influential that this book has to be on this list. This is the only serious collection of Douglas’ work, collecting over 200 images, the vast majority made as either the cover, centerfold or back “poster” of the Black Panther newspaper. For 10 years Douglas laid out the paper and produced the majority of graphics for it, and for a good chunk of that decade he did this weekly! It are the limitations of newsprint production, and his pushing of these boundaries, that really make his style so distinct. Douglas lays bold outlined figures of Black empowerment or oppression on top of backgrounds of pre-fab ziptone patterns, collaged photographs, and earlier versions of his figures, almost all produced in black and a single stock color, used to great effect to pop the armed guerillas, angry mothers and figures from Black history right off the page.
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Posted on September 21st, 2009 in Current Events
For anyone who has spent some time in left circles you know how embarrassing it can get. If it’s not some obscure marxist-leninoid sect alienating everyone within spitting distance with their party lines, the guy who always shows up at the SF Anarchist Book Fair stark naked, the 9/11 conspiracy crowd, or the chap who was rumored to have been skinning roadkill at last Spring’s SF Book Fair, there’s always some unsavory element lurking about on the fringe.
But no matter how regrettable the “left” can be at times, this photo essay, which has been making the rounds on the internet, illustrates a) just how fucking nuts the conservative crowd is, and b) that coherent and consistent articulations of anarchist politics are an imperative in these times of mass confusion.
Posted on September 19th, 2009 in AK Allies, Anarchist Publishers, Happenings
This past weekend marked the beginning of the 4th Annual Victoria Anarchist Bookfair in British Columbia, Canada. For those of you who have never been, Victoria is a prime tourist location that can be described as nothing less than “quaint”—and I don’t mean that in a good way. Regardless, Victoria’s local radicals have managed to prove that there is more to the city than the world’s most well kept gardens and daily whale watching expeditions. The bookfair brought together an interesting assortment of vendors, collectives, and organizations, each with a unique project and mission. Being my first trip north of the border, the bookfair provided a space for me to connect with and learn about the different struggles that some individuals and communities in B.C. are facing. Off the bat, it was good to see the bookfair organizing collective’s Statement of Indigenous Solidarity:
The Bookfair collective supports the struggles of indigenous peoples throughout North America to assert their cultural autonomy and territorial sovereignty. Victoria is located on the traditional inter-lapping territories of the Lekwungen and Songhees peoples, who have endured the seizure of much of their land by force and repeated attempts to obliterate their culture through multiple forces of colonization. The resilience and strength of these and the other communities who make ancestral connections to this region in the face of injustice, challenges us to support them and all indigenous peoples in the on-going struggle against colonialism, capitalism, and cultural genocide.
As with previous years, there were various events held throughout the week leading up to the bookfair, including the D.I.Y Fair, which, luckily, I was able to attend part of. Among the myriad of workshops held at the D.I.Y. Fair (guerrilla art, first aid, etc), AK author Cindy Milstein facilitated a discussion entitled “Educating for Freedom” where she spoke about her work at The Institute for Anarchist Studies. 
Cindy also gave a talk the next day at the bookfair entitled “Anarchism’s Principles and Prefigurative Politics,” which covered some of the themes touched upon in her upcoming book, Anarchism and its Aspirations, available soon from AK Press. After the first day of tabling, much of the crowd headed over to a bookfair-affiliated spoken word/hip-hop show featuring Testament, an anarchist rapper, who also helps run the Empowerment Infoshop in London, BC.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend any of the workshops held during the bookfair because I had to tend to the AK table, but the line-up was solid, with presentations regarding Gender-Queer Anarchy, Indigenous Resistance to Ecocide, Social Transformation through Martial Arts, and more. I did get a chance to walk around the bookfair hall, which included local booksellers Camas Infoshop and Black Raven Records, among others. Josh Macphee, author of Realizing the Impossible, was also present at the bookfair tabling for the radical arts collective Just Seeds. Positioned at a 90 degree angle from the AK table was a new group called the Women’s Publication Network, a project of the UVSS Women’s Center, who were handing out free zines. I found some incredible zines at this table, including a collection of writings from (mostly Canadian) young women of color and a zine critiquing the portrayal of First Nation Peoples in Canadian cinema. Directly across from the AK table was Victoria Street Newz, an independent newspaper/activist resource distributed by low/no income people throughout the city. There is current contact info for all of these groups at each of their linked websites, so please get in touch to find out how you could support any and all of these projects.
Across the room, Gord Hill, author of 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance was tabling on behalf of Warrior Publications, as well as the No 2010 Olympics on Stolen Native Land campaign. For those of you who haven’t heard about the No 2010 campaign, I urge you to visit their website www.no2010.com, to find out why such a diverse constituency has come together to resist the devastating impact that the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver is sure to bring to local Indigenous communities, women, and poor people alike. Heads up—if you are anywhere near the west coast during the month of November, stay alert for updates on the No 2010 Speaking Tour that is making its way down the coast.
I wish I could give you a better sense of what a great learning experience the Victoria Anarchist Bookfair was for me, but I guess it’s just one of those things where you just have to be there. Lucky for you, there’s always next year
Posted on September 16th, 2009 in AK Allies, Happenings
This event is a little down the road, so we might post a reminder closer to the actual date, but everyone in the NYC area should clear their calendars on October 18th. Four board members of the Institute for Anarchist Studies will be holding a panel discussion at Bluestockings bookstore. Knowing the folks involved, I’d guess it will be a productive and worthwhile event.
Taking Ourselves Seriously: Strategizing toward Social Transformation
Panel with IAS board members Josh MacPhee, Cindy Milstein, Maia Ramnath, and Joshua Stephens
Sunday, October 18, at 7 p.m.
Bluestockings
172 Allen Street, NYC, http://bluestockings.com/
Anarchism, by name or in terms of the ethics and forms of organization it espouses, is the dominant tendency today in radical circles. Yet anarchists seem to almost revel in staying marginal, rarely taking themselves and their ideas as seriously as others do. This panel will discuss potential anarchist strategies for the long haul of social transformation, including the possibilities and limitations that presently exist as we work toward an egalitarian, directly democratic society.
Posted on September 14th, 2009 in AK Book Excerpts, AK News
We don’t know if you know this about AK Press, but we really like cookbooks. Okay, not all of us like cookbooks, and not all of us agree on what kinds of cookbooks we like. But on a day-to-day basis, there’s a pretty serious amount of cooking and cookbook geekery that goes on around the warehouse (and over the email, for my benefit). So, it’s exciting that AK’s making a small foray into the world of cookbook publishing with the first US edition of the excellent volume, Another Dinner Is Possible: Recipes & Food for Thought. It’s due to arrive from the printers on September 21, but it’s available for preorder on our website, at a discount, so sign up to get your copy today!
I first came across this vegan cookbook a couple of years ago before I started at AK in a bin of books that Craig had brought to Red Emma’s for us to look through and (hopefully) buy for the store—it was a pricey British import, but we were totally intrigued and bought it anyway. Then I stole—er, I mean I borrowed —the store’s copy to dig out some recipes to use for Red Emma’s ongoing vegan jazz brunch series, and they worked out quite well. Unfortunately, it was hard to get the book in the US (we sold the copy that I did, in fact, return to the store), so I couldn’t really recommend it to people! So imagine my excitement when I joined the AK collective and found out that a US edition was already in the works! Sweet!
The book was written by Mike and Isy, of the Anarchist Mobile Teapot collective, which is, for lack of a better description, sort of like the UK’s answer to Food Not Bombs. Which means that the recipes in this book are geared towards scalability and simplicity. It’s hard to take a recipe from a standard cookbook and scale it up to serve upwards of 50 people in way that’s both cost-effective and efficient. But these recipes are meant to be used in those kinds of contexts, which makes this an ideal cookbook for anyone who’s planning to cook on a mass scale, or anyone interested in cooking for friends. The recipes are written to work for anywhere from 6-10 people, but they’re easy to adapt to larger quantities.
Now you’re thinking of giant pots of pasta with red sauce and TVP taco filling aren’t you? Guess again. Yes, the standard, simple vegan standbys are in here (yes, there is a chapter on cooking pasta), but by no means should you expect this cookbook to be boring. The cuisines represented in here range from Korean to Scandinavian, and the combinations of ingredients are often surprising and usually delicious. Plus, there’s sections devoted to unusual national cusines, rendered in vegan terms. My favorite is the mini-section that explains just precisely how to craft a traditional Swedish Christmas eve dinner (lots of cold fish) using eggplant, chestnuts, and beets.
For example:
Mock Salmon Paté
- Ingredients for 6-8:
– 1 large-ish aubergine (eggplant)
– Salt
– 1 tbsp olive oil
– 1 stick of celery, roughly chopped
– 1 small red pepper, roughly chopped
– Handful of walnuts
– 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
- Slice the aubergine, sprinkle with salt and leave it to stand in a colander for up to 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F/Gas Mark 8.
- Rinse and drain the aubergine. Drizzle the oil over a baking sheet, lay the slices on it and roast them for 15 minutes or until brown. Scrape off the skins and put the flesh in the food processor along with the other vegetables and the nuts. Process until almost smooth.
- Stir in the soy sauce. Add more salt if you like.
See? Easy and creative! Or, this one:
Caponata
- Ingredients for 6:
– 3 large aubergines (eggplants)
– Olive oil
– 2 onions
– 4 sticks of celery
– 4 tomatoes
– 5 tbsp red wine vinegar
– 2 tbsp tomato purée
– 1-2 tbsp sugar
– Salt and pepper
– 200g pitted black olives
– 150g pitted green olives
– 2 tbsp capers
– Fresh basil leaves to garnis
- Suitable for up to 50. A sweet and sour aubergine stew that can be served hot, cold or lukewarm. You can also fry the aubergines if you prefer.
- Serving suggestions:
– Rice or crusty bread, a bean salad and a green salad.
- Cut the aubergines into 2cm cubes. Toss them in some salt and leave to drain in a colander for 20-30 minutes to draw out the bitter juices, then rinse; (this is optional).
- Heat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6. Toss the aubergines in a bit of olive oil and roast them for 20 minutes or until soft and browned.
- Peel and dice the onions, and finely slice the celery. Halve and de-seed the tomatoes, and cut into chunks. Cook the onion and celery in another tbsp of oil for 10 minutes, then add the tomatoes, and cook for 20 minutes. Add the vinegar, tomato purée, sugar, and salt and pepper to taste, along with
the roasted aubergines. You may want to add a dash of water if it is looking too dry. Cook for another 10 minutes.
- Either finely chop or pulse in a food processor the olives and the capers and add, and serve garnished with some fresh basil.
Good stuff, huh? The other interesting thing about this book, though, is the essays in the appendix, which cover everything from the history of food production to nutritional guidelines for vegan lifestyles (including special sections on proper nutrition for babies, children, and expectant mothers) to the culture of waste. The book is an much a manifesto (or a series of them) on the politics of food production and consumption as it is a collection of kick-ass recipes. There’s also a guide for cooking on a large scale, for eating and gathering wild foods, and for brewing your own beers and wines.
So check it out. Preorder a copy, you’ll be happy, and we will too!
Posted on September 11th, 2009 in AK Book Excerpts
Today’s excerpt from a recent AK Press book, comes from James Horrox’s A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement. We were very excited when we first received James’s book proposal way back when. We certainly knew that anarchism had a major influence on the early kibbutz movement, but in order to get a handle on the subject, one had only fragmentary accounts from a variety of sources.
James has done all the research. He explores the foundations of the kibbutz movement, providing a detailed look at its early economic, social, and political organization. Using newly translated letters, diaries, and essays by key figures, he uncovers a deep, explicitly anarchist strain running through the movement. This book illuminates a neglected aspect of Jewish history, taking serious issue with Marxists and other historians who see the kibbutzim primarily as progenitors of the Israeli State. It depicts anarchism as both an inspiring utopian ideology and a viable social practice.
As Uri Gordon notes in his Foreword to the book, “”The defining influence of anarchist currents in the early kibbutz movement has been one of official Zionist historiography’s best-kept secrets…. It is against this background of induced collective amnesia that A Living Revolution makes its vital contribution…. These pages bring to life the most radical and passionate voices that shaped the second and third waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine, and also encounter those contemporary projects working to revive the spirit of the kibbutz as it was intended to be, despite, and because of, their predecessors’ fate.”
The excerpt below is taken from the book’s introduction. It sort of jumps in in the middle of the narrative flow, but the only thing you probably need to know is that the previous section discusses Peter Kropotkin’s defining influence on anarchism in general and, in particular, “the philosophy and the practical character of early socialist Zionism.”
Enjoy!
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Gustav Landauer
The list of Kropotkin’s admirers in the Jewish labour movement at that time includes some of the most famous names in socialist Zionist history. The man perhaps most singularly responsible for introducing Kropotkin’s ideas into this milieu was German anarchist intellectual Gustav Landauer (1870–1919). Through Landauer’s close friendship with Jewish theologian Martin Buber, his ideas regarding social transformation became central to the thinking of many of the youth movements that came to Palestine and established kibbutzim in the early 1920s, and in particular to Hashomer Hatzair (the Young Guard), whose communities later became the Kibbutz Artzi federation.
Landauer rose to prominence within the European Left during the 1890s with the radical student group, the Berliner Jungen (Berlin Youth). As editor of the group’s newspaper, Der Sozialist (The Socialist), Landauer became something of a figurehead among the young, middle-class revolutionaries of fin de siècle Berlin, and he quickly made a name for himself further afield. By the turn of the century, Landauer had established a Europe-wide reputation as an essayist, lecturer, playwright, novelist, journalist, theatre critic and political theorist. Though his middle-class background and opposition to the class war often put him at odds with the mainstream workers’ movement, his contribution to fin de siècle German culture was such that his list of admirers included some of Germany’s most highly esteemed literary and philosophical figures.
Influenced by the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, Peter Kropotkin, Leo Tolstoy and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, as well as by the German Romantics and English-language literary icons such as Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman and William Shakespeare, Landauer’s political outlook went firmly against the materialist grain of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century European anarchist Left. His pacifistic, non-doctrinaire form of anarchism was defined by his belief that the state is not an abstract entity existing beyond the reach of human beings, an entity that could be “smashed” by violent revolution, but an intricate and complex living organism composed of a variegated multiplicity of direct, living, interpersonal relationships between individuals. As Landauer famously wrote in 1910,
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Posted on September 10th, 2009 in About AK
[Editor’s Note: Lorna joined AK Press about five years ago. We somehow convinced her to leave her northern homeland for a warehouse in Oakland…and have been kicking ourselves ever since. No, seriously, AK wouldn’t be what it is today without Lorna’s contributions, on so many fronts. She’s a great asset to our collective, and we’re pleased to provide the following introduction for those of you who don’t know her.]
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Despite the fact that I am so awesome, it’s taken me several reminders and more than a little cajoling to get me to write out a little bio for the blog. So without further ado, here’s me in nutshell. Enjoy, lucky reader!
My name’s Lorna and I’m nearing my fifth anniversary of working at AK Press. Without telling you how old I am (a lady never tells!), I’ve worked over a third of my life in collectives (okay, I’m thirty-six). Despite the occasional agonies, I’m fairly convinced that I only want to contribute my labour to nonexploitive, nonhierarchical, and otherwise fantastic workplaces.
I cut my teeth working on/in collectives as one of the founding members of Mondragón, the anarchist bookstore and café in Winnipeg (a profile of which, if I can get organized, will be my next post). So, yes, I am Canadian! Thank you for asking! After a several years there, I decided it was time to expand the kind of work I was doing and intentionally work way too many hours, so I joined the G7 Welcoming Committee Records collective as well. Both G7 and Mondragón are housed in the Old Market Autonomous Zone, which made doing twelve to fourteen hour days so convenient! The A-Zone is right downtown, in Winnipeg’s “financial district,” and through its relatively short existence has housed a staggering number of really amazing projects (from collectively-run bike shops and publishing houses to a daycare, aboriginal art gallery, lending library, food not bombs, and now the Rudolf Rocker Cultural Centre).
Why would I ever leave?
One day I got a mass email from Craig, which said that AK Press was looking for someone to do the finances (among other things) and I couldn’t think of anything I’d like to do more. Weird, eh? Anyway, in my time at AK, I’ve done a number of different jobs: finances, publishing, and now shipping and receiving with some copyediting and proofreading thrown in for good measure. We all wear many hats, and another of mine is that I currently organize the Friends of AK program, which gives me a greater appreciation every day for the people who we’re in touch with: friends (big and little “F”), authors, customers, comrades…
Before this devolves into mooshiness I will say that, though I love being at AK, one thing would make it better… Please send me squished pennies!
Here’s to another five years!
Posted on September 8th, 2009 in Recommended Reading
Although it’s several months after the fact, I thought it’d be good to alert folks to the fact that the second volume of Robert Graham’s Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas has seen the light of day. Subtitled The Emergence of the New Anarchism, Robert’s book takes readers on an informative journey through what many people consider a time (1939–1977) when anarchism barely existed—as either a vibrant political theory or a social movement.
As with Volume One, reading this book is an exciting and frustrating experience. Exciting because you discover new writers and/or writers you’ve only seen referenced or briefly quoted before (all contextualized by Robert’s introductions). Frustrating because you always want more and are therefore doomed to many months of further research. Of course, there are worse fates.
I was reminded about the book on a recent visit to Robert Graham’s Anarchist Weblog. This site is also highly recommended. The most recent post (as of this writing) is a speech by Amédée Dunois on the subject of “Anarchism and Organization,” which he delivered at the 1907 International Anarchist Congress in Amsterdam. As is often the case when reading these “dusty” documents, one can’t help but notice how little certain anarchist debates have evolved in the last century (or more).
Anyway, below is the table of contents of Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas—Volume Two: The Emergence of the New Anarchism (1939–1977). Get it. Read it. Learn shit.
Best,
Charles
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Posted on September 4th, 2009 in AK Allies, Happenings
This year’s annual Anarchist Bookfair in Providence, RI took place on August 15. Being AK’s only collective member on the east coast at the moment, I try to get out to as many of the bookfairs and radical conferences I can with a trunk full of exciting AK Press & Distro stock, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it to this one. But, my pals Corey & John from the Red Emma’s collective volunteered to drive on out to Providence and represent AK Press for a day; turns out they had a great time, and were even willing to guest blog about the event for Revolution by the Book! Thanks Corey & John … and PS: AK is always interested in hearing about anarchist events on the East Coast that might be good tabling ops. Even if I can’t be there, and it’s not possible for one of our Oakland collective members to fly out, we’re always happy to work out arrangements to send stock out for events, or to try to scrounge up volunteers to table for AK! So keep us posted on what you have planned in the coming months … in the meantime, here’s our intrepid volunteers’ reportback on the event:
AK Press’ Baltimore office took a trip to the Providence Anarchist Bookfair at Foo Fest, a local alternative music and arts festival. We brought the usual great selection of titles, including lots of our favorite AK Press titles, and a variety of books from some of our other favorite publishers. We also brought a large selection of DVDs and we had some brand-new books with us, including David Graeber’s ethnography, Direct Action, and AK’s new Spanish-language edition of the ever-popular Chomsky on Anarchism, both of which had just launched a few days before the event. (Note from Kate: We were really stoked to have Sobre el Anarquismo available for this event, because the organizers had done a lot of outreach to the Spanish-speaking community in Providence, and had asked us to bring a good selection of Spanish-language titles!
The music and food was great, but the people and festival atmosphere really made the Providence Anarchist Bookfair welcoming and a fun time for all. Inside the bookfair tent, beneath a large IWW Providence banner, were some of the best and hardest to find books for radical thinkers. Festival goers also painted huge exquisite corpse portraits and played locally-developed video games ported to arcade style consoles. There were a lot of craft making stations to create impressive paper bag sun bonnets and masks for all ages. Outside the smell of everything from veggie wraps and delicious gyros, one could even buy organic ice cream. (I recommend the cheesecake ice cream). There was even a mini-putting green! On the edges of the festival, art and sound installations, like a box truck outfitted with speakers playing recordings of local waterways, lined the street.
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A zine making school bus loaded with copy machines and screen printing tools had a display in which kids and adults alike used water guns to wash away words like “Copyright” and “Print Media” that had been painted on plastic panels. There was also a bicycle and see-saw powered water fountain.
We had great neighbors for the bookfair including the Providence IWW, Justseeds, Autonomedia, South End Press, and Symposium Books. Lucy Parsons Infoshop of Boston was there as well.
Throughout the day, local acts played music and danced and later in the evening Sun Ra Arkestra took the stage setting the scene for an incredible night in Providence.
Mark this festival on your calendar for next year, the festival was spectacular and all the participants were friendly and excited. We were happy to meet so many amazing people and enjoyed the interesting conversations.
Thanks to the Portland Anarchist Bookfair organizers for being incredible hosts and showing AK a great time. Hope to see you next year.
Posted on September 2nd, 2009 in AK Allies, Spanish
There’s an interesting new online archive devoted to the work of anarchist writer and intellectual Angel Cappelletti.
Born in Buenos Aires in 1927 and spending the second half of his life in Venezuela, Cappelletti taught philosophy at various universities in Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Mexico, and Costa Rica. As a philosopher, he wrote on a wide range of topics—including pre-Socratic, Aristotelian, and medieval philosophy. And he has written a slew of books on the theory and history of anarchism, including:
* El Anarquismo en América Latina (edited with Carlos M. Rama)
* Hechos y figuras del anarquismo hispanoamericano
* El pensamiento de Kropotkin, ciencia ética y Anarquia
* A Ideoloxia Anarquista
* Estado y poder político en el pensamiento moderno
Below is an excerpt from the prologue of Cappelletti’s El Anarquismo en América Latina. The excerpt was posted to the @-infos listserv in 1996 by Luis J. Prat, who I also think did the translation. And, beneath that, I’ve pasted the Archivo Historico Angel Cappelletti’s “About Us” statement, first in Spanish, then my, um, sloppy translation.
Best,
Charles
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from Anarchism in Latin America
…Anarchism has an ample history in Latin America, rich in peaceful and violent struggles, in demonstrations of individual and collective heroism, in organizational efforts, in oral, written and practical propaganda, in literary works, in theatrical, pedagogic, cooperative or communitarian experiments, etc. This history has never been totally documented, although there are very good partial studies. Moreover, those who write the social, political, cultural, literary, philosophical history of the subcontinent usually neglect or minimize the importance of the anarchist movement. There is in this as much ignorance as bad faith. Some historians do not know the facts or consider anarchism as a marginal ideology absolutely minoritarian and scornful. Others, on the contrary, know what anarchism means in the history of socialist ideas and understand its attitude towards Marxism well, but precisely because of this they try to forget or belittle it as the fruit of revolutionary immaturity, abstract utopianism, craftsman and petit bourgeois rebelliousness, etc.
…Like all thought originating in Europe, anarchist ideology was for Latin America an imported product. But ideas are not mere products but rather organisms that, as such, must adapt to the new environment and in so doing, change in a lesser or greater measure. To say that anarchism was brought to these shores by European immigrants is to say the obvious. To interpret this fact as a sign of lesser value seems rather like a show of stupidity. (The very idea of “fatherland” and nationalist ideology came from Europe).
But anarchism was not simply the ideology of the working and peasant masses who, newly arrived in the continent, felt cheated of their hopes for a better life and saw the exchange of oppression from the ancient monarchies with the no less weighty oppression from the new republican oligarchies. Soon, it was the outlook on world and society that the native and even indigenous masses adopted, from Mexico (with Zalacosta in Chalco) to Argentina (with Facon Grande in Patagonia). It has seldom been noted that the anarchist doctrine of self-managed collectivism, as applied to the agrarian problem, coincided in fact with the ancient way of life and organization of the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Peru, prior not only to Spanish imperialism but also to Aztec and Inca imperialism. To the degree that anarchists got to approach the natives, they didn’t have to inculcate exotic ideologies, but only to make conscious the peasant ideologies of “calpull” and “ayllu.”
At the same time, a tendency toward liberty and a detachment from all forms of statist structure took root in the Creole population. When it was not channeled into following feudal caudillos, this provided fertile ground for libertarian ideology. Almost no one mentions the existence (in Argentina and Uruguay) of anarchist gauchos, who had their literary expression in the libertarian “payadores.” But even disregarding such phenomena, which will doubtlessly be considered insignificant by academic and Marxist historians, it can be said without doubt that anarchism sank roots among native workers much more deeply and extensively than Marxism (with the only exception, perhaps, of Chile).
Even when, from a theoretical point of view, the Latin American movement has not contributed fundamentally to anarchist thought, it can be said that from the organizational and practical point of view it produced forms unknown in Europe. Thus, the Federacion Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA) was an example of a center that, being majoritarian (to the point of becoming, in many ways, a single center), never made any concessions to syndical bureaucracy, while at the same time adopting an organization as different from the CNT and other European anarcho-syndicalist organizations as from the North American IWW. Another example, typically Latin American, is the existence of the Partido Liberal Mexicano, which a few years after its foundation adopted an ideology that no doubt was anarchist (the work, above all, of Ricardo Flores Magon) and that nevertheless kept its name and continued presenting itself as a political party (which earned it sharp criticism from orthodox Europeans like Jean Grave).
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